Improvement in postage and revenue stamps



' K. WHEELER. Postage and Revenue-Stamp.

No. 212,416. Patentedv Feb. 18,1879.

WITNEESEEH INVENTUFL of .Wm KENDFUGK WHEELER,

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N.PETERS, PHOTO-LITHOGRAPMER. WASHINGYON n c UNITED STATES PATENT QFFIG,

KENDRIOK WHEELER, OF BROOKLYN, NEW YORK.

IMPROVEMENT IN POSTAGE AND REVENUE STAMPS.

Specification forming part of Letters Patent No. 212,416, dated February 18, 1879; application filed June 17, 1878.

To all whom it may concern:

Be it known that I, KENDRICK WHEELER, of Brooklyn city, county of Kings, and State of New York, have invented a new and useful Improvement in Postage and Revenue Stamps; and I do hereby declare the following to be a full, clear, and exact description of the same, reference being had to the accompanying drawings, and to the letters of reference marked thereon.

This invention consists, first, in an improved method of preparin g postage and other stamps, consisting, essentially, in applying color to the same by means of a cutting or puncturing tool, for the purpose of preventing the same from being reused after cancellation and, sec- 0nd, in the new stamp thus produced as an article of manufacture.

In the drawings, Figure 1 represents a blank stamp which has simply been cut by the tool; Fig. 2, a similar stamp which has been cut, and also colored on the lines of the cut; and Fig. 3, an enlarged view of a printed stamp which has been cut, and also colored upon the lines of the cut. i

To enable others skilled in the art to carry my invention practically into effect, I will proceed to describe the same fully.

A, Fig. 3, represents a postage or other stamp, of the usual well-known kind, which has been punctured or cut by any proper tool, in some regular form, and has been, at the same time, colored by any proper means upon the severed lines. 4

A simple method of carrying the invention into effect is to provide the cutting-edges of the tool with coloring material just before the operation of cutting is performed. By this uneans the coloring-matter is applied to the stamp in certain definite relations to the outlines and both edges of the cut-that is, the line of the cut and the line of the color exactly coincide with each other, the color being, in fact, applied by the cutter-heads; and if the color is once removed, it can never again be applied in precisely the same relations.

The advantages resulting from this method of preparing the stamps are as follows: The coloring-matter, being applied by the cutter, coincides precisely with the lines of the cut. Now, if the stamp after cancellation be washed for the purpose of reusin g the same, this color, which is fugitive in its nature, will also be removed with the canceling ink, and, being once removed, cannot be replaced in its original position, because of the impossibility of making any tool register accurately with the lines of the cut. The points, also, of the cut portion, when wet or washed, contract in the process of drying, so that the stamp never can be restored to its original condition.

Any form of cutter may be employed, and any suitable color be applied in any proper manner.

Having thus fully described my invention. what I claim as new, and desire to secure by Letters Patent, is-- 1. The described method of manufacturing stamps, consisting in printing the same in the usual manner, and then making cuts or slits therein, and simultaneously applying an any iliary fugitive color to said cuts or slits by means of the cutter-instrument.

2. An uncanceled stamp having cut or punctured lines, to the edges of which an auxiliary fugitive color is applied, substantially as and for the purpose set forth.

This specification signed and witnessed this 15th day of J 11110, 1878.

KENDRIOK WHEELER.

Witnesses:

SAMUEL WALKER, F. G. WHEELER. 

